East or West, Home Is Best

This year’s iteration of our three-family camping tradition took place at Fort Ebey State Park on Whidbey Island. After arriving in our various vehicles (in a sad goodbye to our Subaru trio), we survived an initial night of friendly Northwest rain. Having brought absolutely no camping gear of our own, we were grateful to be dry; ours are the right friends for this kind of adventure on the road.

Our stay in this amazing state park included jaunts through a labyrinth of trails overlooking the Puget Sound, a dad-guided trip to the World War II gun battery, and one of our all-time favorite hikes at Ebey’s Landing overlooking the Olympic Mountains.

And of course there was the food. (I’ve picked up more than one delectable dish over the past six years camping with Susan and Jackie.) Add seven kids - one a mere three weeks old - to the excitement of cooking over a Coleman stove and salvaging morsels from the forest floor, and we got a whole lot of fun.

Our last morning in camp found the kids putting on a play in the amphitheater before we took off for a pond-side picnic and some skilled driftwood fort-building on the beach. What a great time!